The Navy's bribery and prostitution scandal is even worse than it looks

The "Fat Leonard" scandal
raises a red flag or two for the US NavyUS Navy

A top US Navy lieutenant commander just became one of the
highest-ranking military officials ensnared in the "Fat Leonard"
bribery scandal.

On April 15, Todd Maliki admitted "that
he accepted cash, hotel expenses and the services of a prostitute
in return for providing classified US Navy ship schedules and
other internal Navy information to an executive of a defense
contracting firm," according to a Department of Justice
press release.

Maliki became
the eighth person to plead guilty to accepting
favors from a US Navy contractor called Glenn Defense Marine
Asia, making him one of the highest-ranking military officials to
be convicted in the lurid scandal that defrauded the
US military of $20 million and resulted in the demotion,
conviction, censure or punishment of nearly a dozen
officials.

The bribery scandal involves a
Singapore-based naval company run by Leonard Glenn Francis, which
provided various logistical and port-related services for
American military vessels operating in Asia. As James Weirick, a
Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and judge advocate general
explained in an article for Task and Purpose, "Fat Leonard" eventually
"admitted
to providing Navy officials with millions of
dollars in gifts and expenses, including luxury travel, $500,000
in cash, and prostitutes."

The bribery paid off handsomely for Francis — at least
until the law caught wind of it. "Francis received
confidential ship schedules for the Navy’s 7th Fleet, along with
pricing information about bids submitted by competitors," Weirick
recounts. He used this information to snag additional contracts
for Glenn Defense Marine Asia and overcharge US taxpayers by some
$20 million — although "Fat Leonard" and his company had to
forfeit $35 million after the fraud was exposed. Francis pleaded
guilty to a variety of bribery related charges in
January.

Still, Weirick argues that the Navy's inability to punish anyone
at the general officer level reveals a disturbing degree of
impunity at the US military's top ranks. The admirals who oversaw
officers implicated in the scandal — and a few who even admitted
to accepting favors from the company — haven't received any
serious punishment, and a few top officers were allowed to remain
in their positions and keep their rank despite having their
security clearances suspended.

The scandal reached all
the way to the Naval Academy — whose superintendent was allowed
to stay on as a Vice Admiral despite admitting to accepting
bribes.Shutterstock

Malaki's guilty plea — which stems from bribes accepted in 2006 —
shows that justice is at least being meted out to some of the US
military's guilty parties, even if it isn't being distributed
evenly. It also gives an idea of just how serious the "Fat
Leonard" scandal really is.

A high-ranking officer sold sensitive
US national security information in exchange for money and other,
even more ephemeral benefits. This suggests an uncomfortable closeness
between military contractors and the US officers they supposedly
service, as well as alarming gaps in basic oversight.

The scandal implicated some of
the highest-ranking officials in the Navy — including the former
superintendent of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, a vice
admiral who received a censure after admitting to accepting
bribes from "Fat Leonard." According to Defense News,
as many as "three-dozen flag officers"were under federal investigation for their
connections to the scandal as of this past February.

It's a remarkable degree of
institutional damage for a single, corrupt defense contractor to
inflict. And it suggests that the worst aspects of the "Fat
Leonard" scandal far go beyond the exchange of "the services of a
prostitute" for US national security secrets.